To get better at rowing, you should practice rowing the whole stroke very slowly. Why?

Because the only way a rower can take control of his actions is slowing down the movement with less work and intensity. Rowing slower will allow you to pay closer attention to using proper form, and ensure that the movement is completely free of any awkwardness, discomfort, inefficiency or unnecessary effort, and that the movement feels good, even elegant or graceful.

Many people ignore this path to improvement altogether and focus instead on the top down approach trying to improve the easy looking relax rowing stroke with massive efforts in the stationary rowing machine. This is a very dangerous approach that risks to develop the wrong patterns of coordination of the rowing stroke from the start. The skills developed at low intensities supports the great effort at higher intensities, not the other way around.

It makes sense to spend some time practicing the rowing stroke at the lower levels of intensity. The goal is to make the rowing elegant, smooth and efficient.

Plenty of times when I coach on the Rowperfect3 or from the 2x I find the rowers I coach having a lot of trouble to slow down. They cannot slow down. WHY?

I believe that they cannot slow down because they row on AUTO PILOT. It means that they have wired a rowing motion and repeated so much without thinking that they cannot do it slower or differently. They cannot take control.

Rowers need to SLOW DOWN and start understanding what they are doing. Rowers need to get IN CHARGE!!
If I say:
Pause at the release, I don’t want their hands to go away, I want a PAUSE at the release.
If I say:
Slow down the hands away after the release, I want the hands to slow down and not to keep at the same speed…
If I say:
Spend 8 seconds from the release to the catch and spend those seconds even during the whole recovery, I want this to be done in 8 seconds and not 5.

Why they cannot do what I ask them to do?
Because they have NO control of their body. Their brain says something and their body do something different.

Solution:

Slow down and learn to take control of your body! It takes time and a lot of repetitions….